Spammers: should I click the 'remove me' link? or is that just
 

telling you that my email is active and to keep sending me shit?

some mailers use it to remove to save on complaint heat.

some think of it as proof you open your mails.


either way your screwed :1orglaugh

don't click

rats. a couple of addys i use only to submit galleries is now getting regular spam.

Business email security provider MessageLabs has issued a warning to Internet users not click on the "opt-out" link on spam emails, as the company said it had discovered yesterday a number of messages using this function to open a spam distribution point on the recipient's computer.


Dubbing it the "drag-and-drop jav*a*scr*pt exploit", MessageLabs said the scheme uses an Internet Explorer bug to "download an EXE file when the mouse is scrolled across the malicious domain page, allowing the machine to be turned into an open proxy that spammers can control".


MessageLabs said that by clicking on the "click here to remove" link the user is directed to a Web page that "triggers an attempt to download malicious code onto computers". The company adds that once spammers are loaded in the users PC they can upload new Trojans "at any time".



http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/sec...9169061,00.htm

one thing i don't understand is why you'd keep sending the emails to someone who has no interest in them?

is it really just hoping that one day, he'll change his mind and buy something?

good idea. you'll probably get more people to click on 'remove me' than to click on the actual ad.

well i dont spam by the way, but I have been brokering lists for a long time so do know the way things work.

And answering your question, a 'spammer' sends out millions of emails every hour.. removing certain emails is just not an issue. But i (suspect) a remove list would offer better ratios as they will get opened far more. All surfers arnt webmasters, they buy crap from spam every minute.

Thats why spam will always be here, it makes a lot of money. And the harder the big companys make it, the more $ there is for the big boys who can still mail.

I dont think spam is good or support it in anyway. I alwasy deal with highly targeted lists with sale data, its not my business to spam.. they are just my views above thats all.

use it, many mailers clean their lists every once in a while, if you're not intersted, we don't need you, ahh, i mean they don't need you.

what's a 'remove list'? a list of emails (such as I described) where the person has clicked 'remove me'?

i'm not passing judgement. make your money how you want to make it. i'm just curious if it's a bad idea to click 'remove me'. i know nothing about spam.

yeh i mean a list which in theory is meant as a list you run other lists by to remove all the people who have clicked remove in the past.

Thats cool, Just wanted to make it clear to the board. Because I know people who do spam.. but its not something I do myself.

And you are surprised why???

well i guess i'm not. but they all contain that 'opt out' link. just wondering if that's just a qualifying tool.

fair point.

not sure on other peoples experiences lately but I have a hotmail account ive had for 4+ years as my any old ady.. so you can imagine the spam! since they updated their filters I get none!!! not one single spam in my mailbox for months, fantastic :glugglug

same thing with Yahoo mail. i used to get 100s every day on 2 of my accounts i actually use daily. now i get - maybe - 7. of course i have no idea if i'm missing legit mail.

you are losing alot of legit emails :(

They only "think" they dont want the product. The trick is making them want it!

Well, think about it. The more times someone sees the same product, the more inclined they will be to purchase it. Also, you could obviously mail another product to them. Proof that it's an active email address is obviously going to make it worth more.

But yeah, remove links are abused so much that spam filters like Spam Assassin actually penalise mailers for terms like remove and unsubscribe in their mailings. Must be a bitch for legit mailers.

they dont need the remove me link to be clicked to know your account is active. Chances are you view your email with html on , and if you do they usually place a small image in the email that is encoded with your email in the image url. So the software will detect if you have viewed an image in the spam email ( i.e. you opened an email )

You can also use this method to track and locate a spammer. If you enocde the image url with an unused email and track that account you can usually track down whom uses/abuses that list.

now that you maxde this post you confirmed you read your email

well i looked at the email 'source code' and i didn't see any <img> tags, but the meta tags were interesting:

<META name="bayport snoopy " content="socket relayed tirade upcome ">
<META name="dominican govern " content="homebuilder hebrew duff johnsen ">

either these are simply random words to bypass anti-spam apps, or i'm a part of some weird clan of zionist beagles conspiring to take over the dominican republic.

All hail the zionist beagles.

I knew charles schultz had ulterior motives.